Between Desire and Denial: A Fake Dating Romance (Hardy Billionaires)

Olive Monroe stood there in her gray sweater with a new look in her eyes, determined and full of fire. And tears. It was the second time I’d seen her vulnerable and broken. And the urge to help her pick up the pieces and comfort her was there again.

That was an obvious issue. I wanted to fix all her problems when we weren’t even dating. Instead, I’d bribed her into coming here and had goaded her into faking a relationship with me all summer just so I could be around her to see all her emotions unfold.

“What just happened?” I slowly closed the laptop I was working on and set it aside.

She combed her hands through her curls, and when they flew over the little Hawaiian flower she always wore, she threw it off and let it land on the ground. “I can still stay, right?”

I’d really believed that people who wore their hearts on their sleeves never appealed to me. I prided myself on avoiding them actually. I thought it was best to spend less time on relationships and more time on business. Yet, with Olive, I studied every emotion on her face. They were like fireflies that I wanted to lock in a mason jar and watch light up the night.

She was open with me about her family in that car and suddenly, I knew I was considering doing everything I could to be a part of her life that made good memories with her.

“Yes, of course,” I responded and then waited for her to explain her abrupt change in plans.

“You won’t be here much, right?” She looked up toward the ceiling, then brushed away some of the moisture on her face.

“Why?” I said slowly. If she was here, I might just opt to stay.

“Does it matter why? Don’t you only care about getting what you want? It’s a good investment.” She tapped her foot on the ground like she was impatient for an answer even though she wasn’t giving me any information.

I liked to take a risk here and there. Shit, I’d spent millions on investments that tanked because, even with all the facts, jumping into an uncertain situation sometimes paid off. It’s why I also went skydiving or swam in shark-infested waters or pushed myself always. We couldn’t grow without it.

Here, though, I hesitated. Olive was more dangerous than shark-infested waters. She was a woman I was quickly getting attached to. I obsessed about my investments, not women. Yet, I found myself constantly wondering about her. I’d scheduled her itinerary for Paradise Grove and watched her damn flight, tracking it to make sure she arrived on time. Then I’d jumped on an opportunity to act like we were planning a family in front of all the important players in Paradise Grove—and not because it’d be good for my investment.

Watching her respond to that brought me joy I hadn’t felt in a long time. And the idea of a family with her grew in my head like it might be a damn fun adventure.

This line of thinking wasn’t good for me. Not at all. Not if she wasn’t going to reciprocate the feelings. I needed to pull back and maybe even abort that plan now. “Well, I don’t only care about the investment. And, yes, I do care about getting what I want.” What I wanted was yet to be determined. “I just recently was trying to come to terms with you not being here.”

“How do you expect to win over the community?” She put her hands on her hips. “Walter and Reggie hate you. Jameson—who, might I add, has a lot of pull around here—thinks you have no idea what you’re doing. And I’m pretty sure everyone wants you out. I’m your only hope.”

She was bold in her anger. “You’re a shot in the dark.”

“Without me, you don’t even have a gun to shoot.” She lifted her chin, still fighting me with tears in her eyes.

“I want to know what happened to make you want to stay.” I wanted to know every single thing about her, but this was a start.

“I just need to do some stuff. I won’t be in your way. You’ll barely notice I’m here.” She smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle on her legging, and I recalled how I’d torn a large hole in another pair the last time I’d seen her.

“That’s impossible, Olive.”

She frowned, her full lips pouting out. “Why would it be impossible?”

“Because if you’re here, my attention is on you and your sweaters and your haggard-looking leggings and the bright flowers in your hair—”

“They aren’t haggard!”

“If you’re here, I’m thinking about fucking you. Twenty-four seven. I notice you in every room. And I notice when you’re not in the room.” I told her the truth, laid it out for her to understand.

“Dimitri.” She breathed out my name before she started nibbling on her bottom lip. “You probably shouldn’t say stuff like that to me when I’m here.”

“I will.” I wasn’t going to lie about it.

“Well, you won’t even be here much.” She turned to look out the window of the living room. “I just need to stay.”

The quiver in her voice had me getting up and moving over to stand beside her. “Tell me what happened.”

She shook her head, pursing her lips. “I’ll stay upstairs, out of your way. You stay out of mine, okay? Completely out of the way,” she said louder, like that was going to help me stop asking the question.

“Well, I can be here all day every damn day, in your way, if you don’t explain to me why you look like you’re about to burst into tears.”

“There’s no looking like it, Dimitri. I am about to burst into tears!” she blurted out.

Then there was one sob. And another. And then I pulled her into my arms. She basically wore her heart on her sleeve, and I was finding I wanted to bubble wrap it up, not because I was uncomfortable when women cried but because her cry made my own heart hurt.

It all should have felt too intimate, but instead it felt right. Especially when she curled into me and her tears hit my chest. I let her cry, and my arm wrapped more tightly around her while my other hand threaded through the curls in her hair. She didn’t hold back for probably a whole minute, and I didn’t ask for any more explanation. Support didn’t look like prying, and I knew she needed unconditional compassion more than ever now.

Finally, she stepped back and looked at my shirt. “Sorry.” She glanced around and stepped away, hurrying over to the kitchen where there was a white towel hanging from the oven handle. She pulled it from the bar and brought it over to blot out the tears on my shirt. “I can wash this for you, if you want. I don’t think it’s ruined. I don’t have makeup on or anything.”

“No makeup?” I murmured and stepped back to really study her. Olive’s skin was flawless without it; a tint of rose touched her tan skin as she rubbed at her nose.

“Don’t look so closely, Dimitri,” she said softly, waving the towel in front of her face but I was taking in how her long dark lashes were a deeper hue from being wet, how her curls were a bit of a mess now that I’d run my hands through them while she cried.

“Why wouldn’t I look at you closely without your makeup on? It’s when I get to see the real you, without hiding a single thing. I want to see the perfection you hide from everyone.”

“Kee’s right. You can be too charming sometimes.” She sighed before jumping to the other topic on her mind. “So, want to show me the upstairs?”

“Right. About that …” I smirked because I knew she wasn’t going to like the revelation once she was up there. “I don’t have much furnished or anything.”

“Oh, well.” She narrowed her eyes and took a big breath, like she was resigning herself to something. “I can make do.”

I hummed. “I haven’t decorated. We’ll need to get more furniture, and I’d like your ideas on renovation and decorating so that when I sell the house, it’ll look good for potential buyers. What do you think about the arches—’

“Most of the homes here are historic, Dimitri. You might want to get over the idea that you can renovate any of it. And as for redecorating, I’m sure you can get someone to come in and do it for you. Keep it to yourself, though, because no one will love the idea of you leaving quick and moving.” She brushed a hand over the wooden staircase railing and pointed to the crown molding along the trim of the living room. “If it were a possibility, the architectural structure of this place with its open concept is ideal for selling anyway. This is a highly sought-after location.”

I smiled at how quickly she could file through her knowledge and provide me with information. “You’ll be perfect at helping redecorate, it seems. You already know a little.”

“I don’t. I did a bit of research a few years ago for a paper, but real estate is fickle. Design trends come and go quickly.”

“You know about real estate too?”

“I don’t know a lot about anything, Dimitri. Just a little of everything. Mingling in my dad’s and stepmom’s circles in this town, and at Kee’s events, made it necessary.” She sighed like maybe she wasn’t so excited about how she’d lived her life so far. “I pivoted a lot in life for people I cared about, probably too much. We strive to make our families and friends and partners happy even when we should be focusing on making ourselves happy first.” I wasn’t sure she was talking to me anymore. She was staring through me, the house, and the world at that moment. Her eyes looked haunted, but then she blinked away the darkness. “Anyway, my past doesn’t really matter.”

“It does,” I corrected her. “It makes you who you are. Plus, I need to know about you, and you need to know about me if we’re going to pull off being a couple.”

“I think we probably need to pull back on that idea.” She wrinkled her nose.

“We can figure it out over dinner. And you can tell me what happened at your family’s house.”

She sighed and combed some of her curls back into place. “It’s just family stuff.”

“‘Just family stuff’ is probably the most important stuff. So, I’m here when you’re ready to share.” I leaned over to the island counter to grab my phone. “What do you want for dinner? We can go over how we met while we eat. Tell me what’s good around here.”

“Haven’t you been staying here on and off?”

“Not really.” I flew in and out for meetings.

“All the more reason Paradise Grove won’t trust you,” she grumbled as she grabbed her phone too. “I’ll put in an order for some pizza. What do you normally like for toppings? There’s great Italian down the street.”

“Pepperoni is fine. And do you think it’s necessary I’m here that much?”

She scoffed as she typed in her phone and mumbled to herself while she presumably ordered before she looked up at me like I was dumb. For some damn reason, I wanted to prove her wrong. “I’ll be here, I guess. So, I’ll schmooze Paradise Grove for you. You of all people know it takes that to win a deal.”

“You’re right,” I said softly, thinking I was trying to win her in the deal, not the damn town.

“They won’t trust you if you don’t attend certain things over the next few months and aren’t around. I can fill in most of the time, but you will have to at least come back when needed.”

“What does ‘when needed’ mean to you?”

“Do you have that full of a schedule?” She read my question the wrong way. My ass was sitting there thinking I might just be able to weasel my way into being here all the damn time. She turned to make her way into the kitchen like suddenly she owned the place. “I mean, you were around quite a lot for Kee and seemed to be able to get most things done on your computer.”

“Kee’s my best friend. And we were dealing with the opening of a resort. Plus, she was engaged to my brother. So, I was with family and doing business.”

“Okay, in that case, you can put on your calendar the annual Paradise Grove Carnival at the end of summer.”

“The board meeting is in a month and a half. I won’t need to go to anything after that.”

She hummed like she disagreed. “That’s if they pass what you want them to.”

“They will because I have you.”

Her amber eyes hardened as she glared at me. “You have to be around too.”

“I will.” I smiled, liking that the woman was putting her foot down about me being around when I intended to be anyway. “There’s a grill out at some point, right?”

“We used to have weekly cookouts on Fridays in the park, but I’ll have to check on that.”

“Every single Friday?”

“Yep. It was a lot. But, I’ll be honest. People expect you to show up. Mom and Dad started to miss them as I got older and she got sicker, and one time they almost weren’t let into a board meeting because of it. Granted, they claimed the board meeting was to discuss the weekly cookouts, but that’s a lie.” She scoffed. “Lucille had a few choice words for board members at that point. She was always very good friends with my mom’s parents before they died in a car accident.”

“I’m sorr—”

“Don’t be.” She waved it off. “I was young. But Lucille has always had a soft spot for my mother and maybe me and my brother, Knox, too.”

“I see that. Your brother still live down the street?”

She took a shaky breath and nodded. “I’m staying for him. And to figure out what’s going on. I just think … something’s not right. And the dynamics of this community truly sway so much that happens.” She chewed on her lip.

“What are you thinking?”

“If you need information about the community and I don’t have a thing to research, maybe the sociology of a small community would be a good start? I could ask around and make nice with everyone.”

This is how I knew Olive was resourceful. “That’s perfect. Any information we can gather as to why they wouldn’t want condos and offices will help. And if you go to most of the upcoming events, along with helping Lucille with that mailer, I’m sure we can gain a meaningful outlook on everything—”

“You should go to this one coming up, though.” She glanced at me as she dug through the white cabinetry and found a glass that she then filled with water. “If you’re not busy.”

“If I’m not here, I’ll fly back in.” I needed to keep priorities in place somewhat, I reminded myself. But as I turned away from her, I spotted the flower she’d pushed out of her hair on the floor. I picked it up, unable to leave it there for some reason.

She always wore them. I didn’t know if they meant anything but I held the flower in my hand as we walked through the dining room. “Let me show you the place.”